GEORGE TOWN – The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo are once again ranked as among the world’s top plastic polluters for the fourth consecutive year in the annual global brand audit conducted by Break Free from Plastic movement.
In a statement, the anti-plastic campaigner accused the soft drink manufacturers of fuelling climate change, which ill effects have begun to appear in many parts of the world.
The audit is done via global beach clean-ups where volunteer waste pickers will identify the brands of plastics, which have littered the shorelines throughout the world.
Global beach clean-ups were carried out by more than 11,000 volunteers in 45 countries to identify the most common polluters.
This year’s brand audit found nearly 20,000 Coca-Cola branded products, which represents more pollution than the next two top polluters combined – as has been the case each year since 2019.
This suggests that Coca-Cola’s pledge to collect one bottle for every one sold is having little impact on the company’s alleged plastic pollution.
PepsiCo also remains one of the top three plastic polluters for the third year in a row.
Despite the company’s recent voluntary commitments to halve the use of virgin plastic by 2030, PepsiCo will need to make a more ambitious shift to reusable containers in order to move down the list, given the sheer volume of PepsiCo branded plastic pollution being collected around the world.
For the first time since global brand audits began in 2018, Unilever, whose products can also be found in sachets, has risen to become the third top polluter during the same year that the company is serving as a principal partner for the United Nations climate change conference (COP26) in Glasgow.
Given that 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, and that the fossil fuel corporations are actively shifting their focus to plastic as an increasing source of revenue, Unilever’s role in COP26 is particularly insulting.
All these companies are contributing significantly to both the climate crisis and the plastic pollution crisis, the Break Free movement said in a statement to The Vibes.
Abigail Aguilar, who is a plastics campaign regional coordinator of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said to stop this mess of plastic pollution and to combat climate change, multinationals like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Unilever must end their addiction to single-use plastic packaging and move away from fossil fuels.
Ahead of COP26, this year’s brand audit shines a light on how the plastic industry is fuelling the climate crisis – how fast-moving consumer goods companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Unilever, are driving the fossil fuel industry’s expansion of plastic production.
Emma Priestland, global corporate campaigns coordinator from Break Free said: “The world’s top plastic polluting corporations claim to be working hard to solve plastic pollution, but instead they are continuing to pump out harmful single-use plastic packaging.
“We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuels, including the significant amount of fossil fuels that are or will be turned into plastic.
“They need to reveal the extent of their plastic footprint, reduce it significantly by setting and implementing ambitious targets, and reinvent their packaging to be reusable and plastic-free.”
Close to 300 organisations in 76 countries have signed an open letter to COP26 delegates demanding a shift away from fossil fuel extraction and plastic production, and an investment in zero waste alternatives.
This year, Break Free from Plastic’s brand audit – an annual citizen action initiative that involves counting and documenting the brands of plastic waste found in communities – collected 330,493 pieces of plastic from 45 countries through 440 organised brand audits conducted by over 11,000 volunteers across the globe. – The Vibes, October 27, 2021
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